The Amazonian Museum Network

﻿One territory, many museums: the emergence of a project

﻿The territory of the Guiana shield fits between two rivers: the Orenoque river in the north and the Amazon river in the south. It is composed of 5 countries: a part of Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and a part of Brazil – more specifically the Amapá and Pará states.

In addition to an exceptionally recognized biodiversity, the Guiana shield is remarkable for its cultural richness and diversity. The people living on it do not limit themselves inside the administrative borders. This transborder specificity, especially in the heritage field, is very significant.

Together, they have got involved in the Amazonian Museum Network in order to initiate and organise the cooperation between the museums of the Guiana shield. Thus, the transborder specificity of the populations and their heritage can be better taken into account and common cultural productions can be carried out.

The cooperation program also aims at building long term bonds between the museums, based on a real and mutual knowledge of the staff and collections of every institution.

Definition and aims of the project

The Amazonian Museum Network project was planned over 2 years in order to enable the museums' staff to develop and improve relations in all heritage-related fields.

The aims of the first phase of the program were:

The creation of an online catalogue of the Amerindian and Maroon museum collections ;

The development of formation courses and organization of cross-border meetings.